


Mercury

by Hedylog



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Insecure Salieri, M/M, One Shot, References to Illness, Song: Mercury (Sleeping at Last), Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedylog/pseuds/Hedylog
Summary: At night, Salieri doesn't sleep. He thinks about his lack of talent, about his unsatisfying life, about his hatred for the Court. Until he finds an exit.Lyrics are from the song "Mercury" by Sleeping at Last.





	Mercury

Once again, Salieri couldn’t sleep. He had tried everything to escape the loneliness of those long nights. Composing worked, sometimes, but lately working on his piano meant furiously pressing the keys, and hoping for his desperation to create something beautiful. It never did.

When the silence of his flat was too much to bear, he used to go to Da Ponte’s, wake him up and talk to him for hours as the night faded out. He stopped as soon as he noticed the bags under his friend’s eyes, and guilt came on top of the litany of thoughts that reminded him every night of how much he hated himself.

On sleepless wintry nights, he often opened a window and stood there for hours, the freezing wind blowing in his face until all he could focus on was his shivering body. The following days, his illness would gift him with hours of precious sleep that exhausted him even more, but miraculously quieted his thoughts.

On some rare nights, though, he let his sorrow wash over him, invade his every thoughts as he walked down the empty streets of Vienna. The only passerby he met wouldn’t so much as look at him, and sometimes he wondered if them, too, were facing their hateful mind.

 

Rows of houses

Sound asleep

Only street lights

Notice me

 

Salieri looked up at the facades around him. Here and there, some flats were still lit. For him, it was still early. He had hours to kill before throwing himself back into the frenzy of the Court. Rosenberg’s plottings would strengthen his guilt, and the music he would hear all day long would make him despise his own compositions.

Long ago, he liked his life, his position at the Court, the reverence he saw in every face raised towards him. A few years were all it took for him to hate it all. He used to think fame would complete him, finally make him feel like he belonged in this world. It didn’t. The constant proximity of other composers, the extravagant balls never made him forget his loneliness. He thought coming to Vienna would allow him to live around like-minded people, but, in truth, he had never felt more isolated. What was he meant to be, then, if not a famous composer? Music was the only thing he was good at, but only now did he realise that _good_ was not enough.

 

I am desperate

If nothing else

In a holding pattern

To find myself

 

Raising his eyes from the pavement, he realised that his steps had guided him to the entrance of a palace. He pushed the back door and headed for a music room. At night, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t a genius. He didn’t need to be precise and restrained to please the Court. He could play his heart out on the keys, let his tears flow from their diurnal prison of false temperance. In the solitude of an empty music room, he didn’t have to talk. For a few blessed hours, he didn’t need to remember the Court’s etiquette, didn’t need to watch his words or his expression. He found comfort in the falseness of the Viennese high society, because no one asked about the flaws he kept hidden, but the same falseness infuriated him. The decorum, the repetitions, every new conversation, every new composition similar to the last. After each day spent in the palaces of the city, he could feel his personality withering, crushed by the normative power of the Court. In a way, it made him able to ignore his thoughts, to focus on what the noblemen wanted from him. He both hated and loved it.

 

I talk in circles

I talk in circles

I watch for signals

For a clue

How to feel different

How to feel new

Like science fiction

Bending truth

 

He finally reached the door of a music room. He paused and listened to make sure no one occupied it, however unlikely it was. All he could hear was the distant chatting of some guards he had sighted a minute ago. He opened the door and went straight to the piano. He could already feel the ghosts of the keys on the tip of his fingers, hear the quiet wailing of the melody in his head. Already, his thoughts were becoming too much, tears clouding his vision as his mind stroked the only subject he knew he couldn’t bear. He sat down and laid his hands on the keys. No one, _no one_ could make him feel better, he had lost this hope long ago to the blaze of rejection and disgust.

 

No one can unring this bell

Unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new

 

He started playing, first one of his favourite pieces, then a new melody he had been working on in the secret of the night. It wasn’t conventional, or beautiful, certainly not the brilliant work he had always wished he could create. The best way he could describe it was… notes. Calm, then furious, melancholic in a way that only spoke to him. But they weren’t harmonious, and it made him doubt it was even music. It didn’t matter. Those notes were not meant to be played in front of an audience, they were the mere reflection of his being, his thoughts, his feelings. For a few hours, as he laid bare the contents of his mind, and let their sound occupy an entire room, he could feel freer, lighter. Yes, he would have prefered the melody of his thoughts to be a lovely ballade, or a graceful serenade, but this was more than enough.

 

God knows I am dissonance

Waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune

 

“This is beautiful.”

Salieri abruptly stopped playing and turned round on his stool. Mozart was leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed.

“No. It is not,” the Italian answered, his voice not as curt as he wanted. He had always been careful around Mozart, watching his tone and his expression even more so than in other interactions. It was not surprising. For him, love had always been harder to hide than contempt. But there was something about this conversation - the quiet atmosphere of the room, or maybe the sympathetic smile that had replaced Mozart’s usual smirk - that softened his words against his will. He tried giving the intruder a stern look, but he suddenly felt exhausted. He hoped Mozart wouldn’t notice the way he was eyeing him.

“Why are you not asleep?” Salieri inquired when the other composer uncrossed his arms.

Mozart’s smile widened.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he retorted.

He made his way towards the piano and sat down on the only other stool in the room, next to Salieri. The Italian was petrified. Mozart was so close, too close, surely he could hear his pounding heart, see the slight tremor in his hands?

“What were you playing, Maestro?”

There was a short silence before Salieri understood that he had been asked a question. He tore his eyes from Mozart’s honest gaze and stared at his hands in an attempt to steady them.

“Nothing. Those were just designless notes, not even music.

\- How dare you say this wasn’t music?” Mozart shot back in the passionate tone that Salieri knew so well. “It came from your heart: this is the virtue of all great music!”

Salieri looked up and stared at him with wide eyes and parted lips. Never had he wanted to kiss him more than in this moment, with his eyes ablaze and his hair an even greater mess than usual.

 

I’ll go anywhere you want

Anywhere you want

Anywhere you want me...

 

The Italian had to muster up all his strength to stop gaping at Mozart. He turned in his seat to face the piano, and bowed his head, his hair hiding his eyes from his counterpart.

“Why did you interrupt me, then?” he said in a low voice.

“I’m sorry?

\- If my piece was so beautiful, why did you interrupt me?”

It was Mozart’s turn to tear his gaze from Salieri.

“Oh. Hum, I… I guess I wanted you to know that. You never seem very confident in your compositions, and, in front of the Court, we have to keep up our little rivalry. If not now, when could I have told you what I think about your music?

\- How did you know that I would be here?” Salieri asked while looking up at Mozart once again.

For a second, he could have sworn he saw the genius blush. A moment later, self-doubt took over him again and he looked away.

“I didn’t,” Mozart answered. “I only hoped.”

Salieri's mind was racing, too much to answer something coherent. Instead, he raised his hands to the keys and started playing the first notes of his new opera. After barely a few seconds, he stopped and stared at his hands.

“I would prefer to keep a certain distance between us, Mozart. I don’t want to be your friend.

\- Is that so?” Mozart retorted, with something like anger in his voice. “And who is to blame for that? Me, or this society of despicable and repressed insects? I don’t believe you are one of those shabbaroons that cause the failure of others to elevate themselves!

\- Then you are mistaken.”

Mozart didn’t answer, and Salieri smothered a sigh of relief. He didn’t want _this_ to change, his position, his privilege. He was too… afraid?

 

I know the further I go

The harder I try, only keeps my eyes closed

And somehow I’ve fallen in love

With this middle ground at the cost of my soul

 

“Salieri,” Mozart said in a grave voice. Salieri looked up at him. “My friend. My… dear friend. I don’t care about what you have done, or the company you keep. I only know that you deserve a lot more than to be a lackey.

\- How could you know that? You don’t know me. I don’t...” to his horror, his voice cracked. “I don’t deserve anything.”

Mozart laid a hand on his shoulder. There was passion in his eyes, a passion which told Salieri that he was being honest.

“You deserve it, Salieri. I have been mistaken about my friends in the past, but there is something about you that tells me that you are a good man. The Court has turned you into a shadow of what you could be. You don’t need them!”

Mozart smiled warmly.

“You are worth more than any of those little lords. They tried to crush me, but they could not. I can help you do the same.”

Salieri was staring at him in wonder once again. How could this man still be alive? Nay, how could he have opposed this man, this wonderful man who made him feel more alive than ever before?

 

Yet I know, if I stepped aside

Released the controls, you would open my eyes

That somehow, all of this mess

Is just an attempt to know the worth of my life…

  


Salieri tucked his hair behind his ear, and noticed Mozart’s eyes following his movement. He smiled feebly. That was the best he could do, for now.

“I think that I like you, Mozart.”

And with that, he meant infinitely more. Mozart understood, of course, if the widening of his smile was any indication of that. Something shifted in his gaze. There was still passion, but no more anger, and when Salieri noticed the glint that appeared there, warmth rose in his chest.

“Antonio Salieri,” Mozart said solemnly, “am I allowed to kiss you?”

Salieri’s breath hitched. Left speechless, all he could do was nod. As Mozart leaned in, he closed his eyes, leaving his first kiss to the realm of touch and hearing. A brush of lips, barely noticeable, by which Mozart made sure of Salieri’s assent. Then, reassured, he truly kissed him, and even though Salieri had thought he would be petrified, should this moment come, he managed to kiss back.

 

… made of precious metals

Precious metals

Precious metals inside

 

When the two composers broke the kiss, they kept staring at each other for ages, smiling. Salieri was the one who spoke first.

“What will become of us?” he asked quietly.

Mozart’s smile faded.

“We could live in secret. I know I will be able to hide _this_ if you want me to. Or… we could run away, to a place where no one knows us.”

Salieri brushed his cheek with the tip of his fingers.

“We will run, then.”

 

I’ll go anywhere you want me.


End file.
